


Timestamp: Schrödinger

by TheRighteousMan (FullmetalFlameElric)



Series: Growing Pains [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Pre-Slash, Timestamp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalFlameElric/pseuds/TheRighteousMan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Timestamp: A brief look of what happened while Derek was gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Timestamp: Schrödinger

**Author's Note:**

> I'm frustrated with some reviewers right now. You get a timestamp for now while I fume and work on my other sections for this fic...
> 
> For those of you that have reviewed and stuck with us this long and have been patient, I love you. so very much. Packmom would give you cookies but sadly I ate all the chocolate in the house while bitching at my phone and emails. I'll try and make the next installment awesome.
> 
> Side note: this was originally titled "Stiles' Big Gay Freakout"

Derek Hale was gone. Packed up and left along with Cora. They weren’t coming back.

Stiles was left on his own. Left behind and reeling from the bombshell he’d just had dropped on him by reality. 

He was in love with Derek.

Not a crush. Not a passing curiosity.

Actual, full blown, love.

He didn’t go home. He didn’t go to Scott’s. He went to Lydia’s. He showed up at her house, quiet as he knocked. Her mother answered and sent him up to her room. He hesitated outside her door, swallowing as he knocked in an attempt to get his voice to work.

“Lydia…” it came out as a broken plea. One that was answered almost immediately, the door flying open and Lydia standing there with worried green eyes. She took in his appearance and pulled him into the room, making him sit down on her bed.

“Stiles? What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked, sitting beside him and running a hand through his hair. Stiles just leaned into it, closing his eyes.

“Derek’s gone… He and Cora left Beacon Hills…”

“They did?”

He managed a nod. She was eying him closely now and he could feel her gaze boring into him. Her hand settled gently on his knee, her leaning a bit closer to get a better look at his face.

“There’s more to it… isn’t there…”

“I’m an idiot, Lydia..” Stiles whispered.

Frowning, she shook her head. “No. Stiles, you’re not an idiot-”

“I am. I was so busy trying to make everyone else happy I never saw it…” Stiles’ tone was defeated, hollow in a way that set Lydia on edge.

“See what?”

Slowly, he lifted his gaze to meet hers, tears starting to break through. “I’m in love with Derek…”

Lydia’s gaze softened and she reached up to brush a few tears from his face. “How do you know?”

Hiccupping in an attempt to keep himself from crying, Stiles swallowed. “Because watching him leave was like having my heart split in two…”

“Oh, Stiles..” she whispered, pulling him close as a sob tore its way from his throat. Tightening her hold on him, she rocked side to side, making calming shushing sounds as she rubbed his back.

Stiles didn’t go home that night. He fell asleep crying into Lydia’s shoulder. She just tucked him in and made the necessary calls to the rest of the pack to let them know of Derek’s departure.

 

From there, Stiles continued on as normal. He put on a happy smile and made sure everyone else was happy. The only one that could see him cracking under the surface was Lydia. She was the only one Sties let see how he was really coping. Though coping wouldn’t really be the word for it.

He was barely existing.

He spent his time with Deaton, learning and perfecting the art of magick. He threw himself into it, hoping to find a way to make the ache go away. Anything to fill that gaping hole left behind when Derek left. 

He cried himself to sleep most nights. Others he just didn’t sleep. He barely ate enough to keep looking healthy. His smiles didn’t reach his eyes anymore. His father started to worry. The pack started noticing, the smell of magick hanging heavily around him like the stench of ozone. Deaton stopped teaching him.

He found what he needed on his own and continued to teach himself.

The wolves started to get nervous around him.

Lydia intervened, taking his books and hiding them away.

Stiles stopped talking to anyone for a week. The silence stopped the day he found the cat.

He’d been sitting out in the rain, imagining the calm around him. The poor thing was soaked and covered in cuts and tangles. The second he heard the pitiful meow he was a goner.

 

His father came home later that night to find Stiles in the kitchen with the cat on his lap, it happily eating a bowl of tuna Stiles had gotten for it.

His father just took one look at the careful care his son was giving the feline and he knew he wouldn’t be able to turn it away. He took Stiles and the cat to the vet’s the next day to get shots and a check up.

Stiles named him Schrödinger.

It was fitting. For both the cat and for Stiles. Because before the cat, no one could really be sure if Stiles was actually living or just an empty shell of his former self.

Slowly, he began to smile more. He spent more time with his friends. He moved on from the ache in his chest and focused on nursing the cat to health.

Schrödinger became his confidant. His closest friend. He told that cat everything. He saved that cat, and in return, Schrödinger saved him.

Six months after Derek left, Stiles was able to laugh again. He could smile and joke just like a kid his age should. He had set aside his magick knowledge, only keeping enough for basic protection and warding. Everything else he avoided like an addict afraid of relapse.

He didn’t talk about Derek.

He just kept smiling.

And then Derek came back. And reality crashed down around him. He only said five words to the wolf. “Hey Derek. How’s it going?” After that, it was silence.

Avoidance.

Until Lydia had had enough. She was going to fix this.

And fix it she did.


End file.
